The Heartland Institute, an independent nonprofit research organization, convened a group of seven experts on urban policy — the four authors shown here as well as Michael Finch, David H. Padden, and Herbert J. Walberg — to put forward a free-market plan to stop the killing. The result is a collection of powerful commentaries on housing, schools, drugs, welfare, and economic development by some of the nation’s leading experts.
This report combines scholarship with the urgency demanded by the situation, and it remains a compelling document for leaders of all large cities.
In his afterword, law professor Barnett writes
The recent focus on violence in Chicago … provides an occasion to reconsider a wide range of city, state, and national urban development policies. The essays in this collection show that many of these policies failed to achieve their ends, and they point the way toward a more promising direction or paradigm. …
We have reason to question the good faith of those who so ardently and vehemently cling to the past and refuse even to discuss, much less consider, any radical alternative. Why not give the policies recommended in the preceding pages a chance?
Randy E. Barnett is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Legal Theory at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts.
Joseph Bast is a Senior Fellow at The Heartland Institute. He cofounded Heartland in 1984, serving as executive director then as president & CEO until January 2018. His research and writing focuses on climate change and energy policy.
Robert Genetski, Ph.D., one of the nation’s leading economists and financial advisors, has spent more than 35 years promoting the use of classical economic and investment principles for sound financial decisions. He heads ClassicalPrinciples.
Daniel D. Polsby is former dean of the law school and professor of law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
